Still Image Capture, iPhone 4 v. DROID X (Updated)

Last Friday, we published a very basic comparison of the iPhone 4 and DROID X 720p video capture modes. Some of you agreed with our assessment of which video camera performed better, and some of you did not. What several commenters did ask for was a comparison between the still cameras in the DROID X and the iPhone 4…and we thought it would be kind to oblige you. The DROID X is, by default, shooting in the 16:9 aspect ratio with an 8 megapixel, mechanical-shutter camera, while the iPhone 4 is shooting in 4:3 with its 5 MP non-mechanical offering. We took stills of four different objects in three different light settings with each camera. The DROID X’s settings were left on “Automatic” (as that is the default) and the iPhone 4…well, it doesn’t have any settings to muck with. The images were all re-sized using Adobe Photoshop CS5, we simply changed the image width to 641 pixels (to fit in our blog column) and allowed the height to automatically adjust to keep the aspect ratio in-tact. The images were then saved without any JPEG compression, degradation, or optimization. Let us know which camera you think performed better in the comments.

UPDATE: As we mentioned in the post we did not change any of the default settings the DROID X was using when taking these photos. Thanks to an astute commenter, it was brought to our attention that the DROID X defaults to shooting in 6 megapixel mode and not the full 8 megapixels. As you may have noticed the tomatoes were a bit ripe when we took the images last Friday, so they are no longer with us. The glass candies, soapstone knot, and soccer ball managed to survive the weekend. We’ve added some 8 megapixel DROID X shots and re-labeled the images for re-evaluation.

UPDATE 2: We were going to save this for our official review but we figure now is a good a time as any to air this out. We’re finding it very hard to take quality shots with the DROID X on the first try. We think what the issue may be is camera-shake that inevitably has to occur while pushing down the dedicated camera button to take a picture (there is no soft-key on the screen to press). Some of these DROID X shots were taken two or three times before we got one that was notÂ blurry, the iPhone only needed one shot to get the images you see. It is unclear whether this can be fixed with a software update or if you just need a really, really steady hand. We’ll be interested to know what you think once you have the device in your hands.